By Dianne McKim
Picture this: I’m alone in my car, sitting parked in a lot far from my former office building, staring at a cardboard box filled with ten years of my personal belongings. Just days earlier, I’d received my best performance review ever. Now I was jobless, caught up in a round of downsizing.
Three days before being escorted out of my office, my son had told me he wanted to live with his father. As a single mother who had navigated 14 years of raising two children alone, I felt like I was swimming in loss.
I had been called into my boss’s office to find him sitting with HR, his face paler than his white dress shirt. Then came the awkward paperwork, being watched while I packed my personal belongings as if I might steal something after a decade of faithful service. Walking past colleagues who would soon fuel the office gossip mill with speculation about my sudden departure was humiliating.
These circumstances led me to discover that my foundation ran deeper than my circumstances.